The 90th NHL season is just around the corner. A look at all 30 teams and their chances as training camps open around the league next week:
Anaheim Ducks: The NHL hasn’t had a back-to-back champion in nearly a decade - Detroit last turned the trick in ‘97 and ‘98. Which brings us to the Ducks, who have a legitimate shot at pulling it off. Much will depend, of course, on whether Conn Smythe Trophy winner and perennial Norris Trophy contender Scott Niedermayer decides to come back at some point this season. Mathieu Schneider was a nice insurance pickup by GM Brian Burke but in no way comes close to replacing the skill level, minutes played and leadership Niedermayer gives the Ducks.

If you are having some issues, can I suggest you clear your cache and or cookies. This morning we have an issue in the KK Forum which prevents you from making a new post. When this message is gone, you can post again.

added 11:21am, In order to fix the KK Forum, Kukla’s Korner will be offline beginning at 5pm ET today. This should take no more than an hour to fix.

update 2:35pm, The KK Forum issue has been resolved, therefore KK will not be down this evening. You can now post in the Forum.Post will remain sticky for a day or so.

Well, enough with the testing, it looks like the new-look Kukla’s Korner will be converted sometime this evening.
So if you try to access KK later today, you may run into a 404, 505, or whatever type of error or it just may be a message stating check again soon. Whatever, you know the conversion is in process.
I have been told KK can be down between 3-5 hours, but that is just a guestimate.
All I can say right now is just check back every-so-often, eventually the new-look Kukla’s Korner will appear.

My bet where Forsberg ends up remains the Anaheim Ducks, with the Avalanche as a remote possibility. It looks like Teemu Selanne will retire, so that opens up the money they would have given him to some other player. And, if Scott Niedermayer calls it quits, the defending Cup champions suddenly would have loads of cap room. They already are missing a top forward from last year, as Dustin Penner is gone to Edmonton.

As a show of their appreciation for tremendous fan support, Pittsburgh Penguins players hand-delivered season tickets to 24 season ticket-holders throughout the Pittsburgh area.
Sidney Crosby poses for a picture in the kitchen of one Penguins season ticket-holder.
Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Marc-Andre Fleury, Ryan Whitney, Colby Armstrong and Maxime Talbot made the deliveries to the fans, who were selected at random.
“It was nice. It was nice to see the reaction on people’s faces,” Crosby said. “Everyone appreciated it; it was fun for me and for the rest of the guys to go and interact with people who support us so much. Some of the people have been season ticket-holders for 30 years. So, this was nice for us to do and to say thanks personally.”

Ken Holland just wrapped up an NHL media conference call, during which he answered the standard “how long can Lidstrom play?” question, a few on Kronwall, one on Grigorenko, another regarding Bubba and a gut wrencher on the shaft job in May.

You know, for us obviously we look back. We lost two key guys on defense: Nick Kronvall late in the regular season. In the middle of the San Jose series we lost Mathieu Schneider. We felt had either one of those two guys been healthy maybe we could have had a different outcome.

The Detroit Red Wings will offer a $9 ticket when they begin selling individual-game tickets on Sept. 13.
The $9 tickets will be offered on a month-by-month basis. Only games in October at Joe Louis Arena will be available in the initial sale.
Additionally, these discounted tickets will be sold only at the Joe Louis Arena box office and will be limited to two per person.

continued… (*no mention of whether the seats are located in the arena or in the parking lot…)

The New York Rangers will retire the No. 2 sweater of former star defenseman Brian Leetch during the upcoming 2007-08 regular season, the team announced Thursday.
Leetch, who officially retired from the NHL last May, enjoyed an outstanding 18-year career and is widely considered the best defenseman in Rangers’ franchise history.
The Rangers will honor Leetch on Jan. 24, when they will raise his jersey to the Madison Square Garden rafters in a ceremony before the team’s contest against the Atlanta Thrashers.

The Anaheim Ducks’ captain met with the media on Thursday, saying he has not yet decided on retirement, and will definitely be late to training camp should he decide to return. The Ducks being training camp next Tuesday.

Niedermayer told reporters that he solicited for advice from Hall of Famer Pat LaFontaine, as well as former New Jersey Devils teammates Scott Stevens and Ken Daneyko. The future Hall of Fame defenceman added that he was not out of shape, but was not in hockey shape and is at least a month away from returning to form.

I’m sure there are a few misguided souls out there who actually believed that (a) Brendan Shanahan would actually, eventually, return to the Wings or (2) Detroit would retire his jersey in homage to his 8 full seasons in Hockeytown.

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